A Fight Over America’s Energy Future Erupts on the Canadian Border

RADISSON, CANADA — Tons of of ft under a distant forest close to the Hudson Bay, Serge Abergel inspected the spinning generators on the coronary heart of the largest subterranean energy plant on the planet, an enormous facility that converts the water of the La Grande River right into a present of renewable electrical energy sturdy sufficient to energy a midsize metropolis.

Mr. Abergel, a senior government at Hydro Quebec, has for years been engaged on an bold effort to ship electrical energy produced from the river down by way of the woods of northern Maine and on to Massachusetts, the place it could assist the state meet its local weather targets.

But right now, work on the $1 billion mission is at a standstill.

Over the previous few years, an unlikely coalition of residents, conservationists and Native People waged a rowdy marketing campaign funded by rival vitality corporations to quash the trouble. The opponents received a serious victory in November, when Maine voters handed a measure that halted the mission. Following a authorized struggle, proponents appealed to the state Supreme Court docket, which can hear arguments on the case on Could 10 about whether or not such a referendum is authorized.

At stake is multiple transmission line. The fiercely contested mission is emblematic of fights happening across the nation, as plans to construct clear vitality infrastructure run into opposition from residents immune to new improvement, preservationists and different corporations with their very own financial pursuits at stake.

“On the finish of the day, everybody would possibly need extra transmission for renewable vitality,” mentioned Timothy Fox, vp at ClearView Vitality Companions, an unbiased analysis agency. “However nobody desires it of their yard.”

The mission in Maine, referred to as New England Clear Vitality Join, or NECEC, is the sort of large-scale, clean-energy infrastructure that shall be required if the USA is to shift away from fossil fuels — a transition scientists say is urgently wanted with a purpose to forestall additional catastrophic local weather change. In accordance with a serious examine by Princeton College, the nation should triple its transmission capability by 2050 to have an opportunity at reaching its aim of not including any extra carbon dioxide to the environment by that time.

For years, all the pieces in Maine was going in accordance with plan.

State and federal regulators carefully studied the mission and gave approvals at each stage. Governors in Massachusetts and Maine had been on board.

And Hydro Quebec and Avangrid, its accomplice on the mission that may function the transmission traces and gear within the U.S., spent lots of of thousands and thousands of {dollars} readying building and putting in the primary 78 of greater than 832 new high-voltage transmission poles that might enable vitality produced in northern Canada to maintain the lights on in Boston.

However there was resistance to the mission virtually from the beginning. Maine residents, annoyed by years of poor service by Central Maine Energy, a neighborhood utility owned by Avangrid, discovered widespread trigger with environmental organizations skeptical of hydropower.

These native teams discovered deep-pocketed supporters in three vitality corporations that function pure fuel and nuclear crops within the area and which stood to lose cash if cheaper hydropower entered the New England grid.

After opponents received a referendum query in regards to the mission on final November’s poll, each side threw cash on the concern, spending greater than $100 million — a file for a Maine initiative — on a slugfest that tied the transmission mission to scorching button points like gun rights and the Inexpensive Care Act.

Although Hydro Quebec and Avangrid outspent the opposition by a margin of three to 1, residents weren’t offered on the deserves of the mission. On Election Day, 59 p.c of Maine voters authorized a measure that introduced work on the NECEC to a screeching halt, not less than in the intervening time.

If the Maine Supreme Court docket sides with Hydro Quebec and Avangrid, work on the mission may resume and electrical energy might be flowing from the reservoirs of Canada into the New England grid as quickly as 2024.

But when the NECEC is scrapped, it is going to characterize a serious setback for these working to wean the USA off fossil fuels, in accordance with unbiased vitality consultants. Growth of a utility-scale clear vitality mission requires money and time, and the prospect that it might be killed by voters — even after it’s vetted and permitted by authorities regulators — would inject a degree of danger that would scare away funding.

“As onerous as it’s to elucidate and defend a mission like this, it’s so simple for individuals to return and torpedo it, and so they don’t even have to inform the reality,” mentioned Mr. Abergel. “In the event you can put a cease to those long run tasks a yr earlier than they’re accomplished, it raises huge questions in regards to the vitality transition and the way we’re going to get it carried out.”

‘Wealthy with water’

Earlier than there was a expensive and acrimonious battle in Maine, there was a easy, idealistic mandate: Gov. Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, a Republican, wished to cut back his state’s dependence on fossil fuels.

On a sunny Monday in August 2016, Mr. Baker appeared earlier than the statehouse in Boston and signed a regulation supposed to ramp up the usage of renewable vitality in Massachusetts. Hydroelectricity, he mentioned, would “play a vital function within the Commonwealth’s new balanced and numerous vitality portfolio by providing clear, dependable and cost-effective base-load, 24/7/365.”

Mr. Baker’s give attention to the always-on nature of hydroelectricity was intentional. Whereas wind farms and photo voltaic panels can now produce substantial quantities of energy, they can’t generate electrical energy when the air continues to be or the solar will not be shining. However Massachusetts occurs to be comparatively near one of many largest sources of unpolluted, constant vitality on the planet: Canadian hydropower.

Engineers have been tapping the Quebec area’s in depth community of rivers to provide renewable electrical energy for greater than a century. Immediately, Hydro Quebec’s 61 hydropower crops produce 95 p.c of all electrical energy within the province, and costs are decrease than wherever in the USA.

Hydro Quebec has additionally been exporting energy to the USA and different Canadian provinces for many years. 5 traces run from the corporate’s grid into New York, Vermont and Massachusetts, and one other main transmission mission is within the works to convey hydropower into the New York grid.

“We had been blessed with a geology that’s wealthy with water,” mentioned Sophie Brochu, the corporate’s chief government, sitting in her workplace in downtown Montreal. “The electrical energy is aggressive and clear.”

So when Mr. Baker set a aim of drastically decreasing Massachusetts’ emissions, Hydro Quebec appeared like an apparent alternative.

And whereas Massachusetts was paying for the mission, prospects elsewhere, together with in Maine, stood to profit. Each states draw vitality from the ISO New England energy grid, a community of energy crops and transmission traces that serves the northeast United States. Decrease vitality costs from hydropower would scale back prices for residents from Connecticut to Vermont.

By final yr, work on the mission was properly underway. Hydro Quebec was clearing forest the place it could set up about 60 miles of transmission traces in Canada. Foliage had been cleared alongside many of the 145-mile-long transmission route by way of Maine. And in Lewiston, Maine, land had been ready for a $330 million facility that might plug the electrical energy from Canada into the American grid, and ship substantial tax revenues to town.

Altogether, the mission delivered what its backers believed was an unassailable mixture of advantages. “That is an environmentally vital discount in carbon emissions, and it additionally supplies an enormous quantity of infrastructure that may allow new renewable era,” mentioned Thorn Dickinson, chief government of NECEC. “You’ve gotten the roles, you might have the property taxes, you might have decrease charges, all with no price to Maine.”

‘A nasty deal for Maine’

Many Mainers noticed it otherwise.

Sandi Howard was rafting by way of a picturesque gorge on the Kennebec River in Could 2018 when she first heard about plans to construct transmission traces close by. Whereas a lot of the world across the river is crisscrossed with logging roads and cleared of timber, additionally it is a well-liked vacation spot for rafters, snowmobilers and campers.

Ms. Howard quickly emerged as one of many mission’s main antagonists. Armed with a Fb group and a ardour for the land, Ms. Howard unfold the phrase about what she mentioned was a basically flawed mission.

“As I began studying extra, the issues began to mushroom,” she mentioned. “There’s quite a few the reason why the mission is solely a foul deal for Maine.”

Chief amongst Ms. Howard’s worries is the impact the brand new transmission poles may have on the native surroundings.

Whereas roughly 100 miles of the brand new wire shall be strung alongside an present excessive transmission hall that shall be widened, the mission will even require a lower by way of 53 miles of largely uninhabited forest close to the Canadian border. Metal poles shall be erected close to streams the place brook trout spawn, and in places that would disrupt scenic vistas.

These issues, together with questions on whether or not the mission would really scale back greenhouse fuel emissions, persuaded outstanding environmental teams, together with native Sierra Membership and the Pure Assets Council of Maine, to oppose the mission. Critics of hydropower contend that the large-scale flooding required to create reservoirs results in emissions of methane, a potent planet warming fuel.

And so they say the general local weather advantages shall be minimal as a result of Hydro Quebec wouldn’t be producing new clear vitality for the New England grid, simply decreasing the quantity of hydropower it sells to different markets. A greater answer can be the set up of rooftop photo voltaic throughout New England, the Pure Assets Council of Maine mentioned, whereas different Maine residents level to what they are saying is a superior proposal to convey Canadian hydropower into the U.S. by way of an underground line in Vermont.

Native American tribes in Maine and Canada additionally joined the opposition, protesting the truth that companies stood to “make billions of {dollars} in earnings with out consulting or compensating the First Nations on whose ancestral territories its electrical energy is produced and thru which it will likely be transported.”

In a letter to President Biden, the Chief of the Penobscot Nation in Maine, Kirk Francis, mentioned that, “the U.S. Military Corps of Engineers ignored its accountability — and our requests — to seek the advice of with us and gave the NECEC its stamp of approval with blinders on.”

Yet one more level of competition was the truth that many residents harbor deep animosity towards Central Maine Energy and Avangrid. A historical past of poor customer support has made Central Maine Energy one of many least in style utilities within the nation, in accordance with a examine by J.D. Energy.

As if all that weren’t sufficient, there was the truth that Avangrid is owned by a Spanish firm, Iberdrola. That, together with Hydro Quebec’s involvement, led to claims that the mission amounted to a international takeover of America’s vitality infrastructure.

Earlier than lengthy, resistance had calcified, and lots of the cities that originally voiced approval for the mission started combating it.

“I wished to imagine this mission was a internet profit to the world with respect to local weather, in addition to a internet profit to Maine,” mentioned Seth Berry, a consultant within the Maine legislature and local weather advocate. “However the extra I appeared into it, the extra I spotted it was neither.”

‘Lots of misinformation’

Although a various group opposed the plan, it wasn’t in any respect clear how they may cease a mission that was already underway and had the assist of senior state and federal officers. However Ms. Howard and her allies quickly discovered well-funded companions that shared their agenda: three vitality corporations that function pure fuel and nuclear crops within the space and would probably take successful to their earnings if the NECEC mission had been to be accomplished.

The businesses — NextEra Vitality, Vistra Vitality and Calpine — had been quickly funding a marketing campaign to defeat the mission, spending a complete of $27 million on the trouble, in accordance with state filings.

Vistra and Calpine didn’t reply to requests for remark. NextEra mentioned it was against the NECEC for a wide range of causes, together with the truth that finishing it could require an costly improve at considered one of its nuclear energy crops in New Hampshire.

By final yr, ads for and in opposition to the NECEC mission had been flooding the Maine media market, unleashing a dizzying collection of claims and counterclaims that blurred the traces between truth and fiction. Battles raged over whether or not the mission would end in total greenhouse fuel emissions, how extreme the environmental results can be, and the way a lot Maine would profit. Opponents of the mission falsely claimed that hydroelectricity was dirtier than coal, whereas supporters tried to influence voters that passing a retroactive regulation would possibly in the future jeopardize their gun rights.

The debates performed out on the town corridor conferences, TV advertisements, unsolicited mail and social media. The Fox Information host Tucker Carlson, who has a house in Maine, produced a phase bashing the mission. Vitality Secretary Jennifer Granholm on Twitter touted the mission’s potential to cut back carbon emissions and decrease vitality costs.

Hoping to win over skeptical Maine residents, Hydro Quebec and Avangrid modified the brand new transmission poles so they might additionally carry excessive pace web cables, and supplied the state a reduced charge on some vitality.

It didn’t matter. On Election Day, Maine residents authorized a fastidiously worded poll measure that, if upheld by the state Supreme Court docket, will successfully kill the NECEC.

“This was the voters saying they don’t need tasks like this in Maine,” mentioned Tom Saviello, a former member of the State Senate, who grew to become a number one voice of the opposition. “We had been giving up lots, and getting nothing out of this.”

However the place Maine residents see a grass-roots victory, executives for Hydro Quebec and Avangrid, in addition to Massachusetts officers, see a bunch of rival vitality corporations stymying the event of urgently wanted clear vitality infrastructure.

“The grid goes to must get constructed out considerably to succeed in our decarbonization targets,” mentioned Kathleen Theoharides, the Massachusetts secretary of vitality and environmental affairs. “What makes me involved is the concept a mission that was totally permitted by state entities may go to the poll, and get a retroactive choice from the voters based mostly on loads of misinformation from vitality corporations that stood to lose cash from this new line coming by way of.”

‘Not good for local weather’

After a day spent touring the producing station in Radisson, Mr. Abergel boarded a small turboprop aircraft for a three-hour flight south to Montreal and mirrored on a mission that seems on the breaking point. From the air, he appeared out on lots of of sq. miles of uninhabited land, a lot of which had been flooded a long time in the past to create the large reservoirs that energy Hydro Quebec’s subterranean generators.

“The mission would give individuals a steady supply of energy — to not point out it’s clear,” he mentioned. “Even for those who don’t care in regards to the surroundings, it is sensible.”

But because the Maine Supreme Court docket decides the destiny of the NECEC, it is not going to be evaluating the mission on its relative deserves, or contemplating the swirling claims and counterclaims. As a substitute, the courtroom will resolve a slender set of questions that don’t have anything to do with local weather change, specializing in technicalities reminiscent of whether or not a referendum can cease a mission that was already authorized by regulators.

“This mainly units the precedent that voters can block these actually vital infrastructure tasks,” mentioned Robin Millican, director of coverage at Breakthrough Vitality, a bunch that’s selling varied efforts to cut back emissions however will not be concerned within the mission. “That’s not good for local weather total.”

Many analysts, and even supporters of the mission, acknowledge that the courtroom may aspect with the opposition, dooming the NECEC and forcing Massachusetts again to the drafting board. That may be a state of affairs that might price Hydro Quebec and Avangrid a small fortune, and will have far-reaching implications, spelling hassle for different efforts to quickly deploy extra clear vitality throughout the nation.